I have a sheep farm along with some rabbits, horses and fowl. I like the sheep and rabbit manure best because you can pretty much just use it straight. The others need to be composted.

My hubby bought me some fish emulsion for Christmas but I haven't tried it. I got it out one day, but that's as far as I got.

I normally go haul horse manure from a stable quite far away from home. A friend told me recently of a stable only about 9 miles from my house. Hurrah! I'll go haul some more this fall. lol.

I make my own compost. I also use shredded leaves and leaf mold. I save seaweed concentrate to soak seedlings before transplant.

Last year, a GW friend sent me a boxful of alfalfa pellets. I need to remember to use them.

I purchase alfalfa pellets in 50 lbs bags and some corn meal at a farm feed store where it's much cheaper than anywhere else. I do purchase a product called 'Better than Bone Meal' which is an organic product provided by Superstore/Loblaws here in Canada, but I've noticed that this year the only time I use it is when I transplant things into the gardens, and sometimes I don't even use it then.

My favourite organic fertilizer is my compost which is made from shredded leaves, used coffee grounds, and seaweed. All are free and in abundance so it's just a matter of collecting, and I don't go out of my way to gather anything. Right now I have 2 full compost bins with finished compost, and one with a new batch just started up last week.

Yeah my Fish Emulsion showed up yesterday. I'll keep track of how it works if anyones interested. Tiffy I've seen Alfa Alfa on several sites and was wondering what it provides? I know that it's hard to beat compost but like many on this site I don't have as much room as I'd like to make it and the stuff that I have working won't be ready until fall, so I'm looking for some alternatives to compost for the rest of the summer. We have lots of geese so I've been using their droppings around several of my plants. They burn up in a hurry so they're real easy to compost. I have a few areas that need some help so hopefully the Seaweed and Emulsion will do the job. I've read several articles that seem to think bat guano is great has anyone ever tried it?

Strouper

I got lazy today, and bought a 1-gallon jug of Saltwater Farms Fish and Seaweed Emulsion at my landscape wholesaler. I'm way behind on everything in the garden, including making my own Eelgrass tea, so I copped out. $20 for a gallon of concentrate which will mix into 256 gallons of water at 3-2-2. It'll go further for me, because I won't use the suggested ratio for all my plants.

This is my first buy of commercial organic concentrate. I'll look forward to seeing how well it works.

I use a variety of things, try different stuff. I just avoid chemicals and salt like Miracle Grow, except I occasionally use those on pots. I really wish folks would stop buying me huge boxes of Miracle Grow as part of gardening gifts. But I use some bone meal, some blood meal. Some Espoma products, which I realize are not certified organic, but their ingredients seem pretty earth-friendly. I've also used some Fox Farm stuff.

Usually I only fertilize in spring, at or around planting time. Other than that most things just get top dressed with compost and/or organic mulches, like grass, fall leaves, or wood.

Karen

I use rock phosphate, New Jersey Greensand, bonemeal and alfalfa MEAL (not pellets -- why put rabbit food out? I got enuf problems with them as it is!). If I have it, I also use bloodmeal and anything else I can put my paws on like eggshells and coffee grounds. It all gets tilled in when I redo a section of a bed before I plant, so that bonemeal is mixed in very well and is not attractive to the diggers.

Because there isn't any fertilizer per se, I can plant baby seedlings right away. Because it is organic, it is supposed to break down slowly and stay in the soil a long time.

I also use horse manure and composted leaves/grass/kitchen scraps and mulch with very fine chopped leaves in fall. It's still not enough!!!

Lime

Fish Emulsion.
And I ran out. And I'm not happy.
It might smell just a tad, but it sure does do the trick.

I'm ready to go buy a pound of fish, puree it in my blender, and bury it in the plant beds...but then my husband told me it's actually illegal to dispose of fish in the ground. 'Sides...my next fruit smoothy will taste fishy.

Linda

I use fish for established plants, fish and kelp for new plants that I want good root growth (this is hard to find here). Bone meal, alfalfa, my own home compost, leaf mold (great for soil and organics and very light fertilizing in wild garden areas that don't need much nitrogen), horse or cow dung... - I'll use whatever I can find that is organic - no chemical fertilizers here, ever. I use both soil feeding and folar feeding.
I love a handful of chicken poop in the compost heap. Sets it on FIRE!

Well, let's see. I use weak fish emulsion for seedlings to fortify them. Transplant water bucket I use Epsom Salts in it, the hole gets my magic mix of calcium, soft rock phosphate, kelp or seaweed meal, alfalfa, bone meal and dried blood.
I feed my bunny alfalfa pellets and veggies, so I use the manure in the beds. Now, I use the manure to make a manure tea.
In the spring the beds that don't have direct sowed seed get corn gluten meal. All the beds get , corn meal, calcium/lime and dry molasses.
After this 98 degree heatwave goes thru I will be foliar spraying my fish emulsion, garlic, hot pepper spray solution.
Oh, I also used 200lbs of composted cow manure in some older beds this year and have a load of horse manure aging in the field for later.
Although I use alot of different types I would have to say Fish Emulsion as a foliar spray is tops. For pre emergent, weed control the corn gluten meal is testing out wonderfully in the established beds. My hand weeding chore has been cut down considerably.
You can buy Fish Emulsion at Wally World, Home Depot or Lowes.

Lime, alfalfa pellets are just pelletized meal, if you don't want pellets you can add a small amount of water and it will puff out to the meal state.
Plant a trap crop for those bunnies, my wild bunnies hop past leaf lettuce because they have enough to eat elsewhere.

Wow busylizzy your name really fits you! I think it would of been easier to tell us what you don't use. You're the 2nd person that I've seen using bunny poop for manure tea. As I mentioned before we have a lot of geese in our area I wonder if I could use their dropping for the same thing? I was also planning on doing a fish spay once the temp comes down what do you add the garlic and peppers for pest control or are they good for something else?
Linda I'm like you I don't have a local place where I can buy fish emulsion, so I've got to order it online. I don't know if you have the type of yard where you can make your own but if you do the captain has a recipe on how to make it on the compost site. I'd love to make my own but my yard isn't really set up so that I can do so.

Strouper